Lesley Dill at Museo Rayo
Roldanillo, Valle del Cauca Colombia
April 2 – July 9, 2022

Lesley Dill at Museo Rayo

From curator Miguel Gonzalez:

Art produced in the United States has occupied an important place on the agenda of our programming. We have held individual exhibitions of Andy Warhol and Claes Oldemburg and recently we hosted the Pop-Art graphics that included twenty works, among which you could see works by Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana, Jim Dine, Ernest Trova, Louise Nevelson, among others. The art produced in this country has had a special rise in the aesthetics of national works and has built an important reference.

On this occasion we received the proposal from Lesley Dill, born in Maine in 1950 and living in Brooklyn, New York. Her work presents a double interest, not only visual but literary. For her the word is very important, as well as the texts of writers.

Her work has used different means of materialization in search of communicating not only a particular poetry but signs for a feminine identity. The works on display intertwine images and texts that wish to build allegories.

Lesley Dill received an MFA from Smith College in 1974 and then an MFA from the Maryland Institute in 1980. She initially emerged as a sculpture and multimedia artist. In her professional practice, she has used various materials such as paper, wire, horsehair, photography and even produced an opera inspired by the writer Emily Dickinson entitled Divide Light, released in 2008.

In Lesley Dill's work the use of texts is very important and we could say crucial. She has turned to the writings of Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu or Tom Sleigh to nurture her proposal to give a new light to human forms. Her works have a peculiar fragility, both the fabrics and the sculptural objects, thus accentuating the artist's intentions.

Her works have been able to enter different collections in museums including three in New York: Metropolitan, Modern Art and Whitney. She has also received numerous awards for her work, among which the Guggenheim, Joan Mitchell, National Art Foundation and Anonymous Was a Woman scholarships stand out.

We hope that this exhibition, the first by the artist in this museum, will become a visual and thought experience.

Dates: April 2– July 9, 2022

For more information: https://museorayo.co/ea4.php

About Museo Rayo

In 1973, in recognition of the award Omar Rayo received at the São Paulo Biennial, the municipality of Roldanillo donated a piece of land to him in order to create new spaces and possibilities for art. That was how he decided to found a Museum of Latin American Drawing and Engraving: The Rayo Museum. The following year he traveled to Mexico and obtained from the architect Leopoldo Gout the model of what the building is today. The design, inspired by elements of Mayan architecture, consists of eight octagonal modules, and on January 20, 1981 the official inauguration of the Museum was made.

Since its inauguration, the Rayo Museum has been dedicated to exhibiting the work of its founder and Latin American artists. Individual and collective exhibitions of great masters of drawing and engraving have been presented, who frequently give workshops and lectures to the public. The idea of ​​the Rayo Museum has always been to be a dynamic and active museum and several generations of national artists have been trained in its workshop. As our philosophy presupposes the integration of the arts and cultural pluralism. There are also contests, meetings, conferences, literary readings, dance performances, theater and concerts.

Annually in the month of July, since 1984, the Encounters of Colombian Poets offer women from all regions of Colombia the opportunity to share their work with their peers in an inclusive environment where respect for difference prevails. The great poets and scholars of the language are heard at the Encounters as well as representatives of all literary trends and Afro-Colombian and indigenous poetry. There are also conferences, plays, concerts and exhibitions related to women's creativity.